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These papers were prepared as background papers for the May 1994 meeting of hte NEACD in Tokyo. They neither represent a consensus of the participants nor a summary of any part of the discussions at any of the meetings. They are presented here in the hopes that other readers outside of the NEACD prcess will find them to be as useful and thought-provoling as did the hosts and participants.

The economic crises in Thailand, South Korea, Indonesia, and Japan have focused attention on the region's economic problems as well as its well-documented success. One potential problem is satiating these economies' increasing demand for energy. This problem has been made even more pressing by deep devaluations that substantially raised imported energy prices in local currency terms. IGCC Policy Papers 35-37, Energy and Security in Northeast Asia, seek to examine the international implications of the longer-term energy situation in Northeast Asia, including the decisions that government policymakers are likely to make to address their economies' pressing energy needs. Policy Paper 35, Fueling Security, debates the fundamental issue of whether rising energy demand generates new security dilemmas or whether efficient energy markets mitigate potential security risks arising from increased competition for energy resources. Kent Calder argues that energy rivalry might deepen tensions among the major powers in Northeast Asia, while Fereidun Fesharaki sees market competition where Calder sees rivalry. This paper examines the market assumptions behind these analyses, including the current status and projections for overall regional energy demand (Fesharaki, Sara Banaszak, and WU Kang) and fossil fuel use (WU).

In the decades ahead, Northeast Asia will be the critical region on the global stage. Interaction among and between Northeast Asian societies is rapidly advancing, both at official and non-official levels. Among the latter, one of the most promising developments is the emergence of Natural Economic Territories (NETs), economic entities that cross political boundaries, taking advantage of the complementarity of neighboring regions, combining resources, manpower, capital, technology and managerial skills. With political barriers being progressively lowered, this trend is certain to be expanded in the years ahead.It is clear that no analysis of the inter-state relations within Northeast Asia can be sound without a careful examination of the domestic conditions—current and future—governing each nation. The paper weaves domestic and foreign policies together, indicating their reciprocal effect.

The role of agriculture in Northeast Asian cooperation has been important for many years. However, the end of the Cold War and the recent security concerns in Northeast Asia have made this issue more urgent. In addition, recent developments in international agricultural relations have changed the context in which nations of the region are now making agricultural and food-related policy. These broader issues provide the context for this paper.It has long been understood that food and agriculture are vital to the security of any nation or region. However, the nature of this relationship is sometimes misunderstood: it is easy to overlook the fact that a goal of food and agricultural security is consistent with a goal of economic progress and overall economic security. It is now more widely accepted that liberalized trade and privatization of agriculture are critically important for economic development and income growth, whereas restricted trade and food self-sufficiency objectives diminish economic growth and security. This theme underlies the argument of the present paper.The overall objective of the paper is to describe the current agricultural situation in North Korea, South Korea, China, and Japan with reference to the issues of food security and agricultural cooperation. The paper will succinctly describe trends in agricultural supply, demand, and trade for each of the four countries. In addition, where important for understanding supply and demand trends, there will be a brief explanation of the impact of recent developments in domestic agricultural policy. A discussion of future subregional cooperative possibilities concludes the paper.

The North Korean economic decline in the 1990s reveals a complex food and energy shortage problem. Inadequate energy supplies are an immediate cause of this agricultural collapse, and the energy shortage must be resolved in order to reach a sustainable recovery.Hayes, Von Hippel and Williams explore the origins and impacts of the rural energy shortage, and suggest that international cooperation is necessary to resolve North Korea’s energy and food crises.

Two leading Asia scholars, Prof. Ahn Byung-joon and Dr. Konstantin Sarkisov, led discussions about U.S.–Japan relations, the U.S.–Japan Defense Guidelines Review, and the current situation on the Korean Peninsula at the seventh NEACD plenary in Tokyo. These contributions were subsequently revised to reflect the tumultuous events of the first half of 1998: the inauguration of South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and his “sunshine policy” towards North Korea; stalemate in the Four Party Talks on the Korean peninsula; a second Clinton-Jiang summit; and the deepening of the economic crisis in Asia.Presented here are Prof. Ahn Byung-joon’s (Yonsei University, Seoul) reflections upon the revision of the U.S.–Japan Defense Guidelines and their potential impact upon regional security. Dr. Konstantin Sarkisov (Institute of Oriental Studies in the Russian Academy of Sciences and visiting professor, Hosei University, Tokyo, Japan) addresses the challenge of putting the continuing conflict on the Korean peninsula in the context of the broader regional security environment. While addressing different topics, both make remarkably similar observations regarding the increasing complementarity between bilateral and multilateral diplomatic efforts in Northeast Asia, despite the lack of an official multilateral organization akin to NATO or the European Union.

One hundred and sixty-nine fibre samples from books in the Korean collection and 68 samples from books in the Japanese collection at the British Library were analysed. A further 15 samples of Korean paper from a private collection were also examined. The analysis confirmed that most of the papers contained mulberry species (Moraceae family) as the main papermaking material, and other materials, such as hemp, rice straw and reed, which have been commonly known as supplements to traditional Korean papermaking. However, 15 Korean papers and one Japanese paper dating betweenad 1498 and 1798 appeared to include coniferous wood fibres. This substantial find supports a previous single find of a coniferous wood fibre in Korean paper. The dates of most of these papers containing wood fibres precede the use of wood pulps in European paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In pre-modern Korea, paper was renowned for its white glossy surface and cloth-like strength, becoming an important item in both tributary exchanges and private trade. The unique material of the tak tree and related technical innovations, including toch'im, the repeated beating of just-produced paper that provides sizing and fulling effects, were crucial to this fame. However, the scholar-officials who integrated papermaking into the state production system in order to meet administrative and tributary needs initially made toch'im corvée and then penal labor, thereby dismissing it as simple toil. They were not alone, though, in denigrating a form of manual labor. Historiographies of modern science and technology are generally silent about such work, focusing instead on how we invented the human out of drudgery. However, papermakers in late Chosŏn Korea (the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) chose to identify their artisanship with toch'im and eventually succeeded in securing recognition for that technique as a highly paid specialty. By examining this skilling of toch'im, this paper seeks to change the historiographical silence about toil. It overcomes the archival silence that accompanies manual skills by tracing toch'im's contours through its changing locations and associations in society's changing social and material networks, revealing paper artisans' social techniques, or everyday politics that eventually dignified their laborious technique. Paper artisans' changing relationships with tak barks, tools and facilities, central and local authorities, farmers, merchants, and scholar-officials reveal how such social skilling was made in late Chosŏn Korea, where papermaking became a most successful industry. This tracing of toch'im re-situates creative toil and everyday politics of artisanal hands in the interconnected transformation of social relations, craft, and knowledge practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The annals of the Choson dynasty, a group of archives including 2077 volumes dated from 1392 till 1863 were declared National Treasury by the Korean government in 1973 and were later registered as Memory of the World by Unesco in October 1997. Some of these historical papers, coated with a wax substance, are called Korean wax papers. They present nowadays various patterns of degradation. As little is known about the waxes used and the techniques employed to wax the papers, it appeared necessary to identify the substances used and to assess their degree and pathways of alteration to further define adapted conservation treatment and preservation conditions. We focused in this paper on four microsamples taken from different waxed Choson manuscripts dated from the 15th and 16th centuries. A modern Korean beeswax sample was also analyzed as reference. A two-step analytical methodology based on infrared spectroscopy, HT-GC and HT-GC/MS analysis was developed. These investigations led to the identification of beeswax in all the samples. In a single sample, paraffin was also determined, indicating a step of restoration, possibly during the 19th century or afterwards. All the samples revealed an altered pattern of beeswax that is reported here for the first time. Particularly, the presence of hydroxyesters in high amount and the formation of n-aldehydes are new and interesting results that may be explained by the use of previous oxidative treatments. Depletion of the shortest chain n-alkanes and monoesters was also observed. The different alteration pathways of beeswax in Korean wax papers are fully discussed in this paper. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]